Biased Estimates of Environmental Impact in the Negative Footprint Illusion: The Nature of Individual Variation.

ABSTRACT: People consistently act in ways that harm the environment, even when believing their actions are environmentally friendly. A case in point is a biased judgment termed the negative footprint illusion, which arises when people believe that the addition of "eco-friendly" items (e.g., environmentally certified houses) to conventional items (e.g., standard houses), reduces the total carbon footprint of the whole item-set, whereas the carbon footprint is, in fact, increased because eco-friendly items still contribute to the overall carbon footprint. Previous research suggests this illusion is the manifestation of an "averaging-bias." We present two studies that explore whether people's susceptibility to the negative footprint illusion is associated with individual differences in: (

SUBMITTER: Threadgold E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8803658 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature